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Tag: Blue Jays

Your dad is on the couch. Sat there all afternoon. Took a nap through the middle innings. Day-dreaming of a sweep. Watched the Cubs score three runs, slept, then woke up to see them give up the lead. Tied up.

And then, in the top of the tenth. It’s Justin Wilson. “No!” your dad shouts. “Justin Wilson!?”

The two teams that rose, in 2015, from the ashes of two down decades. An ALCS for Toronto, a World Series win for Kansas City. And now, sinking down… down… by the law of averages, back to the bottom. Hopskotch jumping between last place and its closest neighbor—with the dream of 2015 a scrapbook piece for history.

It’s yet another classic hit from the greatest of this baseball generation, leaping and bounding his way through the record books, into the hearts of fans, his face on every billboard across Canada—the one, the only… Darwin … Barney?

The fans at Globe Life Park are chanting USA! USA! USA!! Jose Bautista is being hugged from behind, for over five minutes, by Adrian Beltre. The dugouts are empty. The bullpens are empty. Kevin Pillar is running around like a bull in a stampede.

It’s Chris Archer Bobble-Head Night down in St. Pete, it’s my first time in the Trop, and its domed, decaying interior is making me queasy. The concourse looks like a high school gymnasium and smells like off-brand candy corn. I’m not in Kansas Wrigley Field anymore…

So in case you haven’t heard, there’s something special going on in Chicago, and not the more expected sight of a Blackhawks team clawing its way back into yet another Stanley Cup Finals (pour one out…)

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Upcoming, 2018: An October to Remember

An oral history of the 1968 World Series, composed entirely of interviews with each of the remaining players. Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Denny McLain, Orlando Cepeda, Tim McCarver, Mickey Stanley and many more. Due out for the 50th anniversary of the Series—August, 2018.